If Cameron Loses, Expect Tory War

Andy Beckett in the Guardian has an interesting piece speculating on what happens if the polls stay as tight as they are or narrow further and David Cameron loses the election.

Reuters

Beckett quotes Tim Bale, the academic: “You’ll get lots of huffing and puffing on ConservativeHome. But I can’t see a serious leadership challenge.”

Really? If the Cameroons manage to chuck it away and Gordon Brown is still in Number 10 after May 6, I think you’ll see much more than huffing and puffing. You’ll see a brutal post-mortem and something akin to a Tory civil war.

The Conservative party — the MPs, party workers and members out in the country — have been extraordinarily well behaved from their leadership’s point of view in recent years. The Cameroons often take this for granted — which is a mistake. There have been grumblings about the leadership’s approach to placing favored candidates, and some nervousness about whether the high-ups know what they are doing in terms of the election campaign. But even as the polls have dipped, the Tory tribe has remained quiet and overwhelmingly loyal to its leader. They are desperate to win.